Now that I've gotten everyone's attention, let me point out that not only do I have the Pendragon version on both DVD and video, and have watched it a number of times already, but it is less than a day and a half since I saw Spielberg's monstrocity in the theatre. It wasn't worth it. Fortunately, the theatre was in a local shopping mall which also had a supermarket, and when the film was over, I was able to do some grocery shopping and stock up for the holiday weekend, so my Saturday outing wasn't entirely for nothing. (Note: Here in the US, on July 4th we celebrate our gaining independence from certain unsavory colonizers who shall remain nameless here.)

Spielberg's film was a HUGE disappointment! None of his human characters were the least bit likeable, and most were stupid to boot. (Remember the guy at the car place who repaired the van Cruise & Co. drove off in shortly after the attack started, and who refused to go with them? That scene makes me think of the landlord of the Spotted Dog in Wells' novel, who sold his horse and cart to the narrator, and was thus unable to flee himself.) The teenaged son should DEFINITELY have been killed, preferably during the travesty of a battle scene. That scene would have been more emotionally moving if Cruise's character had been forced to make a choice between his son and his daughter, and then seen the consequences of his choice as the former was killed.

Frankly, I was hoping ALL of them would get killed! Cruise's character wasn't the least bit likeable, unlike the narrator in both the original novel and the Pendragon film. At least in those versions, the narrator was still married, loved his wife, and struggled to get back to her. But in this film, Cruise is divorced, and his wife is not only with another man, but having his baby. In fact, all Cruise's struggles are so he can simply do what his son even accused him of doing: go back to his ex just long enough to dump the kids with her, so he can go back to his listless lifestyle. Tim Robbins' character was a mess, which was inevitable, as he was three characters (Ogilvy, the artilleryman, and the curate) mixed together into one. A true hardened survivalist type wouldn't have panicked as he did when they discovered the Martians (or whatever) drank human blood.

Okay, so the humans were scum. This is more or less the cast in most sci fi films, particularly those which are heavy on special effects. So how were the effects? Technically, they were far superior to those of the Pendragon film, but their effect was badly diluted by the fact that Spielburg for the most part didn't do anything with them. We saw the tripods rising out of the lightning-struck pits and zapping people around them with a preposterous beam that totally disintegrated people (and not just the body part which was hit) without touching their clothing. But if they were advanced enough to do that, why not develop a ray that kills without damaging the body? This would actually make better sense, given the plot, as the Martians had come to harvest humans for their blood. Spielberg's idiot weapon makes as much sense as butchering a steer by tying a lighted stick of dynamite to it: you kill it, but there's nothing left to eat.

For all intents and purposes, there are NO battle sequences in the movie! A big disappointment (and premonition of worse to come) was when Cruise's character met the TV news crew. The reporter simply TOLD him that weapons were useless against the Fighting-Machines' shields; we never see this ourselves. Her film merely showed the tripods walking about, plus a shot of the aliens "beaming down" via the lightning strikes. At the end, Cruise and the soldiers take down one tripod. Big deal. By this time, it's obvious the germs have won the war for us, and the humans waste ammo and risk lives taking down a tripod whose crew is too sick to turn on the force field generator (or who shut it off in a delerium of fever) or fight back. In fact, the driver survives the actual assault, only to drop dead from illness moments later.

What about the big battle scene? WHAT big battle scene? You mean the scene where the tanks and Humvees and helicopter gunships are blazing away? Blazing away at what? All those troops are on top of a hill, firing at something we can't see because said hill is in the way, and we only see a few casualties due to enemy return fire. When the film shows the Martian tripods later, it merely shows them majestically stalking along, not even resisting human fire. So Spielberg shows us fancy Fighting-Machines made by his special effects department, but he doesn't actually show them FIGHTING.

I suspect what he have here is Hollywood political correctness at its worst. Shortly after I joined this board, I referred to Spielberg as a "stupid liberal" on the thread which stated that he assumed any alien visitors would be friendly. I took a lot of heat from it, but now consider myself fully vindicated. Liberals hate the military that protects them as well as everyone else, and are simply cowards when it comes to warfare. Well, guys, THE STUPID LIBERAL DID IT AGAIN! He was so squeamish about warfare that he couldn't even work up the fortitude to portray our soldiers shooting at a ruthless alien race that came here to drink our blood, and which doesn't even exist in real life.

Now compare this with the Pendragon film. I've already mentioned that the ground battle scenes were the best part of that movie, and rightly so. In it, we see infantrymen charging the Martian pit before getting zapped by the Heat-Ray, and lots of artillery pieces being vigorously manned by human crews. The Heat-Ray itself is invisible, but that's because that's how Wells wrote it, and we see the Fighting-Machines operating the mirrors that direct it before seeing the guns blow up, making it obvious to anyone (other than possibly Spielberg) that it was the Martian fire that did them in. And when the human big guns DO score a hit, as they do several times, we see the Fighting-Machines actually take damage and go down.

Even the scenes with the "Thunder Child" were better than the "action" sequences in Spielberg's piece of crap. Yes, the inferior special effects team make it look like little more than a toy ship, but in the film, it was the little ship that could. It steamed straight at the enemy on a suicide mission, and before it was sunk, it took two of the enemy tripods with it. Where can you see human military personnel showing anything like that sort of courage in the high-tech version? The liberal Spielberg can't bring himself to show our soldiers behaving heroically, so he just shows them driving around, directing refugee traffic, engaging in target practice (since we don't see them actually hitting anything), or picking on a sick alien in a tripod in a scene that was probably meant to evoke sympathy for the ruthless alien invader.

On top of everything else, the premise of the actual invasion was all screwed up. The Fighting-Machines were buried underneath our cities ahead of time? Without our noticing? And if they were buried beneath the city sites BEFORE the cities were built, then how did they know that cities would even be built there? And before you say they simply assumed that cities would be built in logical sites like the junction of two rivers or a coastal site with a natural harbor, let me point out that a million years or so ago, they would not know what these areas were. The glaciers of the Ice Age came and went a number of times since then, and the aliens would not know in advance how much or how little they would melt. This means they wouldn't know what the ocean level would be (so there's no way to know where the COASTLINE would be, much less coastal cities), or how much or how little rainfall inland areas would get (ditto for determining river courses and the like).

In short, this movie stinks to high heaven. The Pendragon film was poorly made and badly edited (if at all), but at least it had a sensible plot with mostly likeable characters. Those who were not, like the curate, were those who had been written that way by Wells. And Hines' film wasn't afraid to show audiences the horrors of combat the way Spielberg was. (Come to think of it, in the previous "Jurassic Park" series, can anyone remember a scene where humans did any real physical harm to any of the dinosaurs? Of course not; that would be too politically incorrect.)

Want to see a well-done movie version of "The War of the Worlds" newer than George Pal's 1953 offering? Then pin all your hopes on Asylum's film, which is due out on video and DVD shortly. Now that Spielberg's dropped the ball in a big way, that's all that's left.

I take it you are not a member of the Spielberg fan club Have you considered that the Fighting Machines were placed all over the country and not just under the cites? one of them rises out of the river, a million years ago there may not have been a river there when the alien planted it.
But if you prefer the Pendragon film that's fine, it's nice to know there is at least one person on this planet, other than Hines, that does.

Responding to alland. Anyone who says that Pendragon's verion is better than Parramounts really has problems.

And to attack Speilberg because he didn't fulfill your lust for violence is a bit unhealthy.

He isn't shy of violence as we know. Saving Private Ryan has some of the most violent images ever filmed. Shindler's list also has some excruciatingly violent scenes.

I could have handled more violence myself, but for no good reason other than I have a brutal streek.

In the end the film did not need it.

As for your little dig at the British about the battle for indepence. Does this mean that you think America should be given back to the Native American Indians, who have endured colonization for hundred of years now? Who have almost been wiped out by the American army and pushed into reservations.

the Pendragon version is so awful I haven't even bothered to review it or mention that I have seen it. It is a travesty of a great great book. Truely pathetic in every way.

I suspect what he have here is Hollywood political correctness at its worst. Shortly after I joined this board, I referred to Spielberg as a "stupid liberal" on the thread which stated that he assumed any alien visitors would be friendly. I took a lot of heat from it, but now consider myself fully vindicated. Liberals hate the military that protects them as well as everyone else, and are simply cowards when it comes to warfare. Well, guys, THE STUPID LIBERAL DID IT AGAIN! He was so squeamish about warfare that he couldn't even work up the fortitude to portray our soldiers shooting at a ruthless alien race that came here to drink our blood, and which doesn't even exist in real life.

Is that why you posted your review, so you could make hackneyed cheap jibes at 'liberals'? Yawn...

Never mind that Spielberg portrayed the military magnificently in 'Saving Private Ryan'.

And nice one for having the courage of your convictions in mentioning your country's former colonial masters. Oh wait, you didn't... Still, we Brits may have been scum, but at least we left the genocide of the Native Americans to you lot. And what a great job you did, nice one.

Last edited by McTodd on Mon Jul 04, 2005 2:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Responding to alland. ... to attack Speilberg because he didn't fulfill your lust for violence is a bit unhealthy.

I've noticed that several 'bad' reviews have said there weren't "enough" battle scenes between army and tripods. Apparently such a machine vs. machine showdown was (is?) very important to some.

Personally, I didn't have a problem with a 'war' story told from a refugee's point of view, instead of a soldier's. That was Wells' approach in 1898, and an interesting departure from the imagined war literature of his day. The usual venue was the soldier/combatant's point of view.

As for the tripods having been buried:

I think maybe too much is being made of the 'millions of years' line. This was uttered by the slightly loopy survivalist, after all. Hyperbole from a freightened/angry man?

The idea that some aliens might be going around to various planets, stashing weapons for later use, is not so far fetched. I have to admit that the burying scheme seems hard to accept. Maybe they were placed deep, and not just under the city streets.

They could have been teleported there moments before the storm. The aliens couldn't teleport themselves due to a biological reasons, So they came down a different way.

The machines could have traveled across space by themselves, landed and buried themselves, and the aliens followed at a slower pace, due to any number of reasons. The machines could have been programmed to vapourise if discovered.

Responding to alland. ... to attack Speilberg because he didn't fulfill your lust for violence is a bit unhealthy.

As for the tripods having been buried:

I think maybe too much is being made of the 'millions of years' line. This was uttered by the slightly loopy survivalist, after all. Hyperbole from a freightened/angry man?

The idea that some aliens might be going around to various planets, stashing weapons for later use, is not so far fetched. I have to admit that the burying scheme seems hard to accept. Maybe they were placed deep, and not just under the city streets.

This is probably the most brilliant piece of Speilberg's work. Maybe crashing cylinders would have been cool, but from now on anybody who has seen the movie will think about it next time a thunderstorm with a lot of lightning strikes occur. I think this is the effect that Speilberg wanted.

They could have been teleported there moments before the storm. The aliens couldn't teleport themselves due to a biological reasons, So they came down a different way.

The machines could have traveled across space by themselves, landed and buried themselves, and the aliens followed at a slower pace, due to any number of reasons. The machines could have been programmed to vapourise if discovered.

Vaporizing would fit with the matter-disrupter beam thing that ash-ified people. A sort of Ash Self-destruct.

What if the buried machines indicated a sort of 'we'll get to that planet later' aspect? Maybe earth wasn't the only planet these guys went around havesting?

Then too, the idea of pre-deposited weapons also fits with a very old attack/invasion scenario. Some of Wells' contemporaries (such as LeQueux) liked the plot device of hidden weapons caches as the proof an impending invasion. Granted, it was usually more pedestrian, such as the cellar of a pub in East Anglia being chock full of rifles and ammunition (French, Russian, German, whatever) to be used when the invaders land.
But the idea of stashed weapons for later invaders has some historical traction.

Now that I've gotten everyone's attention, let me point out that not only do I have the Pendragon version on both DVD and video, and have watched it a number of times already, but it is less than a day and a half since I saw Spielberg's monstrocity in the theatre. It wasn't worth it. Fortunately, the theatre was in a local shopping mall which also had a supermarket, and when the film was over, I was able to do some grocery shopping and stock up for the holiday weekend, so my Saturday outing wasn't entirely for nothing. (Note: Here in the US, on July 4th we celebrate our gaining independence from certain unsavory colonizers who shall remain nameless here.)

Have you lost your mind. I also have the pendragon (I own it too unfortunetly, its being sold for $8(US) at wal-mart. the asylum, and have Seen speilbergs film but the pendragon was the worst of the film. I can see why it's 8 bucks too.

I'll have to take some annoying screen shots of it to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

The actors are hamy, the photographer films in the day but insults us by portraying it as night. One thrid of the film is wasted watching our main character walk and stumble over and over and over ad nauseum.

As I read in another forum on another site "Mr. Hines" appears to be having trouble keeping his pants off fire, and I suspect your having the same trouble.

As for your little dig at the British about the battle for indepence. Does this mean that you think America should be given back to the Native American Indians, who have endured colonization for hundred of years now? Who have almost been wiped out by the American army and pushed into reservations.But er God bless you and your views.

I think he kinda forget that we were british at the time. Speaking of which most Americans treat July 4th as a day to Celebrate the nations birth, and not actually to celebrate seperation from the UK. Don't let him fool you loz we love the UK.

I'd never lump him in with the rest of the American people. I've been to America 3 times because after here its my next favourite place on Earth.
Throughout time big nations absorb smaller nations and you can't take it back or hold it against the later generations. I was just pointing out his Hypocrisy.
I was just pointing out that both are nations have done dispicable things. Britain almost wiped out the Aborgiones and took their land. We would have done the same to the American Indians if we had remained in controle of America. There isn't a race on Earth that wouldn't have done the same thing if they were in charge at the time, such is the way of men.
Anyway anyone who says the Thunder Child scene in the Pendragon version is better than the ausault on the Tripod camp in Parramount version, because two tripods get it in the former and we don't see the impacts in the latter has a screw loose.
The Thunder Child scene is so unbelievably bad I had pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming.
Apart from the fact it looks like something out of my bath, there are no characters on board. It is completely without soul.

So sorry if I looked like I was bashing America there as I wasn't, I aint a hypocrite.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v289/ ... or_day.jpgHere's another of hines offensive Look its really night time. This shot is the opening shot before the first Cylinder lands. Well actually the cylender is already shot pased the camera. See the little green streak at the far right? Yea thats it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v289/ ... attack.jpgThis is pretty much the extent of any action with the thunder child. The way this long scene works out is we get 1 second glimps of the thunder child, then the camera cuts to a shot of the paddle boat the two ladies and the guy are riding on. Then cut to a shot of the one ladies facial expressions, then the next, then finally the man. Then if were lucky we get another small glimpse of the Thunder child. Opps now where watching the paddle again, then the the first lady then the second then the man again. The simulated lense flare looks nice. But thats about it.

Its clear hines had only about 20 seconds of footage of the battle so he padded the scene with these repetative cuts of the casts faces as if their facial expressions are changing and worth watching. Presto he turns 20 seconds of mediocure battle footage into a painfully long 3 minute scene.

And we don't even get to see that wonder shot where the thunderchild shoots one of the tripods. Instead we get to hear it then the camera cuts from the paddle boat to a shot of one of the tripods falling down. Wonderful editing.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v289/ ... _lunch.jpgOf course we all have to love this effort by hines. Instead of sucking the blood out of a man as in the story. A screaming helpless lady is drained instead. (Her screams are actually pretty creepy). Of course the aliens have accidently start stripping her close as they fumble all over her body search for a spot to stab her. Notice the effort taken to show her nude thigh and stalkings in this shot.

Of course this is nothing compared to the opening scene from the asylum version of the film.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v289/ ... scarey.jpg On the upside. The pendragon version keeps the martions looking as they were described in the book. Of course with a little better textureing and design they would have looked scary. Instead we get this creature to laugh at in the film. For more comedy this creature your seeing here falls off the side of the cylinder with a screeching cry.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v289/ ... looser.jpg No ulla cries in this movie. Instead we have our hero rushing towards a dying tripod hoping to be killed by it. Pfft unfortunetly the critter dies so we're stuck with the human character. If only he haden't fallen down earlier about 10 times he might have made it intime.

And no its not my screen capture software, its hines film that is blurry. I'm convinced hines wasn't even trying when he made this film.
Here's a shot to prove it. This shot was from the Asylum disc. Its the opening scene. Sorry I had to hunt for a few frames where she's not showing her breasts.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v289/ ... _chick.jpg

If I were you I would stop critisizing Tim hines for his effort and look at this film for what I is. A reasonably accurate adaptation of the book. True, it could have been so much better. Some of the effects are of a low standard and the acting a bit suspect in parts, (although the curate was a cool character).

Watch it without speilburg tinted glasses. Hines did not have ILM to do his CG (and it shows) Better editing and less blue screen face shots would have helped but I was very impressed by the tripod shots.
I watched it in three one hour segments, (like a serial) and enjoyed it this way.

I think we make a mistake in expecting too much from a low budget film.
Dead london should have been longer, thunderchild should have had more work done on it but this did not detract from my enjoyment of the film.
For $8, I think you would be a fool to miss it!
I`m saying this and I spent 20 POUNDS to get this film. (About $35 I think!)

Give it a try...You never know, you just might like it! (then again, you may not!)

Well, I must agree that Hines gave it a try. And some images and the trailer look well, Hines should have put more time in it, that's all.

And, I still maintain that if someone (not Hines) were to seriously edit the 3 hours of content down to 90 minutes or so, his film would be much better.

For instance, keep the effect of blasting Big Ben, but use only the first few seconds -- basically the tower getting hit and crumbling. Bag the whole gravity-defying flight to the bridge footage. It only hurt the credibility.

Bag the endless views of people walking along that same meadow path, shorten the various moments which drag. (like the narrator looking up from the dog cart to see his first tripod)

Even with lame low-budget effects, the overall movie would flow faster and read better.

(of course, I wouldn't mind of someone (else) were to remake a few key scenes, such as the Thunder Child battle -- maybe with more smoke and flame and steam, so less CGI is necessary)

It sounds like damning praise, to say that Hines' movie could be improved by having less of it, but I mean, keep the better, active stuff, and cut out the chaff which dilutes the effort.

Sorry I couldn't get online again earlier, but my ISP let me down in a big way yesterday. First off, that Fourth of July crack was an apparently failed attempt at humor (the "shall remain nameless" part was a recognition that this board IS mostly British). If I've hurt anyone's nationalistic feelings, I'm truly sorry. That wasn't my intention.

Now for the movie criticism. First off, I wasn't trying to say that the Pendragon film was in any way a GREAT film; I'm just saying that Spielberg's flick was worse (which is really saying something). Think of my Pendragon "endorsement" as a "lessor of two evils" type of thing.

Criticizing my complaints about the lack of violence? HELLO! This movie is called "The WAR of the Worlds"! WAR, as in violence, bloodshed, combat, and men (or whatever) risking their lives in battle. If somebody makes a movie with "war" in the title, and the plot of said movie is a military invasion, then any intelligent filmgoer should reasonably assume that it has plenty of combat in it, and have every right to feel cheated when there's none at all. It's not called "The Peaceful Coexistence of the Worlds", after all. This was a mistake that George Lucas did not make with his "Star Wars" series of films.

Regarding "Saving Private Ryan", permit me to point out that A) the enemy was the Nazis, and B) Spielberg is Jewish. Extenuating circumstances. Plus, since the big battle scene is that of US troops struggling ashore against German fortifications on D-Day, I'll wager that far more Americans than Germans got killed in that scene. Besides, the entire movie makes the US military look stupid, with its plot of risking an entire squad's worth of men to save one ordinary soldier who doesn't even have any valuable military information. My criticism of the liberal Spielberg stands.

I still think burying the tripods ahead of time was a stupid idea. If the aliens reached our planet before any intelligent life had appeared, THAT would be the time to land and colonize the place, BEFORE any "local talent" could evolve as competition. What's so sensible about leaving a perfectly habitable planet alone until a native civilization appears, leading to people shooting at you when you come to take over? Take over while the locals are all still animals, especially if you intend using them as livestock anyway.

Among other things, burying their weapons raises the possibility of the locals discovering them. Humans were sinking mines into the Earth long before the time of the invasion, and just one uncovering of a futuristic weapons cache would warn them that something was up, to say nothing of the fact that if the humans were sufficiently advanced upon uncovering the tripod, they might be able to reverse-engineer the thing and even the military odds. And the aliens wouldn't be able to know in advance how quickly we would advance. For one example, it is only by chance that Hero's Engine was ignored, preventing the Industrial Revolution from starting in the time of the Roman Empire. If we'd had a leg-up of over a thousand years, we might be the aliens' technological equals even without discovering an arms cache.

Sorry, guys, but the movie still stinks. If you say that Hines' effort stinks as well, you'd be right, of course. I'm just saying that it stinks less than Spielberg's version, even if it's only accidentally so, by virtue of following the original novel. If Asylum lets us down as well (and the copy of the film I've ordered hasn't arrived yet), then it's back to George Pal's 1953 flick, at least until someone else works up the nerve to tackle Wells' masterpiece.

Humans were sinking mines into the Earth long before the time of the invasion, and just one uncovering of a futuristic weapons cache would warn them that something was up,

that would explain all those mine explosions they put down to gas leaks in the 19th and 20th century. but of course we don't know how deep they buryed their war machines do we. they may have been digging their way out and stopped just below the surface awaiting their pilots.

I still can't work out why you would buy Two copies of this awful film.

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